What your checks say about you

I'm the PTA Treasurer for our middle school. How I fell into this job is a mystery to me to this day, but that's another story. Today I'm thinking about you and your checks.

Seems like just a few years ago I wrote a lot of checks; for groceries, department store purchases, whatever. But I think I'm like a lot of women who now write checks rarely. We pay online, or use our credit card.

But we still need checks, like when we need to write one to the PTA.

I just put $16,000+ into the bank today in small checks. They were for our magazine drive. After spending countless hours handling all these checks I have a few things I want to get off my chest.

1. Disney and Tinker Bell are cute on checks, if a little juvenile. Nice little flowers and designs? Shows you care about these little aesthetic details in your life. Spongebob Squarepants on your checks? I'm worried about you.
2. Checks shredded across the top - is it really so hard to tear them out? Try pulling down instead of up.
3. Handwriting. Other than your signature, where you are free to scribble away, you really need to try to make it legible. Some of these checks had to go through a committee of us to figure out what they might say. Printing is best. Slow down.
   
4. Some of you write your cents as xx/oo's. But those xx's often look like 44's or 99's or 55's . Aren't we supposed to write no/100's? Is there a rule book somewhere?
   
5. Don't write on the back. That's the recipient's spot to endorse or sign over for cash. Why would you write "for deposit only?" Maybe I don't want to deposit it. You're taking up my space.
6. Write it down in your register. Do you know how many people have written a check to the PTA for the same thing twice? You'd be surprised. Write it down.
   
7. When I contact you to tell you that your check bounced, I'm as embarrassed as you are. I'm just a mom here, volunteering. But who writes a bad check to the PTA anyway? I'm sure it was just a mistake. Just write me another one (that's good) and we'll forget about it. No need to keep apologizing.

Ok, I'm done ranting now. Can I say how awesome you are for donating to your school? Especially here in California where we have some of the lowest per-student funding in the nation, we depend on parent participation.

I'm talking to you, single mom out there, who didn't order magazines but just wrote the PTA a check for $500. You make my whole job worthwhile.